Sports

Auto Racing: Looking back at the highs and lows of a memorable season

Scripps Howard
Published: November 30, 2008

It was an auto-racing season of seemingly inevitable conclusions. Some conjured ambivalence, some dread. Some made history. Some may change it forever.

Despite a troubling beginning to his Sprint Cup season in which Jimmie Johnson looked like anything but a two-time defending champion, the 33-year-old rallied in the Chase for the Championship to better Carl Edwards by a wide margin and join Cale Yarborough as just the second to win three consecutive titles at NASCAR's highest level.

Scott Dixon, extending a two-year run of excellence in the Indy Racing League, became the fourth straight driver to win the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar championship in the same season. The 28-year-old New Zealander won his second IRL title by winning a third of the season's races and finished worse than third just five times.

The IRL season, its first one after unification with Champ Car, a series that went bankrupt and dissolved, was long since over when a worsening world economy began to cast foreboding shadows across the end of the NASCAR season. Racing consumes money faster than fuel and rubber, and money promised to be scarce in the future as sponsors retrenched and the Big Three U.S. automakers asked for billions of dollars in aid from the government.

Racing will return in 2009, but it will almost assuredly look different, at least for a while.

But back to 2008, and some memorable moments:

Patrick gets her first win

Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to win a major race in a North American series. The impact for the IRL would have been greater had it happened in the United States instead of Japan, but Patrick's long-awaited first victory was a boon for her credibility as a driver — no more Anna Kournikova comparisons — and the league as a force in racing.

Funny Car driver killed

Scott Kalitta, a 46-year-old Funny Car driver, was killed in a fiery crash at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J. His death spurred the NHRA to mandate new safety guidelines.

Dixon clinches IRL title

Scott Dixon won a record-tying six IRL races and set a mark with 899 laps led, denying and frustrating runnerup Helio Castroneves by 17 points. Castroneves finished second a record eight times.

Paul Newman dies

Actor, philanthropist, environmentalist, racer. Paul Newman, 83, lived life and lived it well. Eulogized in the New York Times as "a likable renegade, a strikingly handsome figure of animal high spirits and blue-eyed candor whose magnetism was almost impossible to resist," he was respected, envied, admired. Newman, who co-owned IRL team Newman/Haas/Lanigan and drove sports cars as a younger man, succumbed to cancer.

Hamilton wins F1 title

Lewis Hamilton, the second-year McLaren Mercedes driver, attained the points needed on the final lap in Brazil to become the youngest man and first of African decent to win a Formula One title.

Castroneves indicted

Helio Castroneves, the charismatic two-time Indianapolis 500 victor, faces a March trial date for federal tax evasion. The images of him shackled, bawling on the steps of the Miami federal courthouse were in stark contrast to his beaming smile that endeared him to mainstream America when he captured a "Dancing With the Stars'' championship.

Stewart leaves Gibbs

Tony Stewart leaves Joe Gibbs Racing to form his own team. A 10-year veteran and two-time Sprint Cup champion, Stewart accepted a large stake in Haas CNC Racing from convicted tax evader Gene Haas for free and will drive for the team next season. He then hired Ryan Newman, who left Penske Racing.

Johnson makes it three straight

Jimmie Johnson captured his third straight Sprint Cup championship. A four-peat would tie him with mentor/teammate Jeff Gordon, a once-unthinkable scenario that now seems completely plausible for NASCAR's dominant force.

Economy impacts racing

The imperfect storm of credit crunch, stock market meltdown, and death rattling among the Big Three U.S. automakers walloped racing, specifically NASCAR, which depends on Fortune 500 sponsor dollars. Impact has been severe within the garage, as teams have merged seeking security, employees have been laid off, and it figures to get even worse in 2009.

The open-wheel flops

Former CART and F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve lasted two Cup races in 2007 and one Nationwide race this season. Three-time IRL champ Sam Hornish was 35th in Cup points and missed two of the last seven races. Dario Franchitti broke a bone in a Nationwide wreck, saw his Ganassi team lose funding and returned to IndyCar. Patrick Carpentier was replaced midseason. The exception could be Scott Speed, an F1 refugee who won in trucks and ARCA .